Colfax Guitar Shop

Harmony Conversion | Mossman | Custom Guitars | Restorations

Examples of Our Work

Custom Rosewood Jumbo

The early photos show the "go-bar" sticks that are used to glue the braces to the back. You can also see that the back is wet from the rag used to clean up all the excess glue. Later, the back is glued to the sides. After this step is completed the guitar will be ready for the top to be fitted and attached. The binding and purfling are glued into a carefully routed channel. You can see the individual pieces of abalone trim lying on the top to be added between the wood purfling strips. The neck has a final fitting to the body. The body is now ready for the finishing process. We only use nitrocellulous lacquer on our custom guitars. The headstock is inlaid with hand cut mother of pearl and abalone. Below is Scott preparing pieces of pearl to be inlaid into the fingerboard. Another photo shows the fixture used for holding the neck secure while it is being carved. All of our necks are completely carved by hand. All of the braces are scalloped and shaped by hand with a sharp chisel, then fine sanded before the top is fitted to the body of the guitar. Yellow tempera paint is painted on the surface that is to be inlaid. This is done before the inlay pieces are glued to the surface, thus making the scribe marks much easier to see when routing out for the inlay pieces. You can see the beautiful finished product being played by our good friend Jack. The design of the bridge with its backwards shape and inlays pay homage to the Gibson J-185 for which it is patterned after.

Christina's Christmas Mandolin

This mandolin was created as a Christmas present for my wife last year. The sides and back are made from cypress. The photos show the back and top being glued on. The top is braced much like a guitar. The finished instrument has the neck angle and bridge height of an old Gibson A style. However, the top is a flat top design only with an arch built into it. The result is a great playing and sounding mandolin.

Custom Thin Body Cutaway

This guitar was built in 1997 and is one of only four thin body cutaways that Scott has made. The three others include the Mossman Warner Brothers Superlative guitar and the Carl Perkins guitar.

Hard Rock Cafe Guitar Bars

In 1986 I built two guitar bars for the Hard Rock Cafe. One is patterned after a Stratocaster and the other one is a Les Paul Custom. Every detail was duplicated in a 10 to 1 scale including the knobs, pickups, inlays, tuning posts and frets. These parts were mostly machined from solid brass. The Les Paul was built on the patio. Here you can see the headstock portion with brass tuning posts, truss rod cover, Gibson logo, and beer tapper. On the inside we built a Strat style guitar. Here you can see the knobs and pickups as well as the three tone sunburst finish. Both guitar bars were covered with 15 gallons of clear urethane finish over the sunburst and black paint job. Here at the headstock of the Strat style bar we can see the brass tuning posts and frets. The Hard Rock was unable to get Fender's permission to use their logo which explains why it says Kramer. At the time Kramer was making a Strat copy.

Headstock Fracture Repair

Colin Mitchell and his Fender 5-string Jazz Bass were in a rollover accident on the way home from a gig. Fortunately, Colin fared much better than the bass. After all of the gluing and finish touch up you can barely tell it had been broken. John is shown showing off the finished bass.

John's Acoustic

This series of photos show John building his first acoustic. The inlay "C G S" stands for "Colfax Guitar Shop." This guitar is made with rosewood sides and back, spruce top, mahogany neck, ebony fingerboard and bridge. The first sounds that a new handmade instrument makes are exciting. After spending weeks building an instrument the first time you string it up and play it is nothing short of magical. If you have made a great guitar you will know it then. Here's the best part about building guitars... JAMMIN'.

16 Inch Jumbo (J-185 Style)

This guitar was built in 1996. It has curly mahogany sides and back with a bear claw spruce top, ebony fingerboard and bridge, as well as mother of pearl inlays. The mahogany has so much curly flame that some people thought it was koa wood. It also has an abalone soundhole rosette and a Fishman transducer. Our friend Leon is giving the guitar a test drive.

Martin D-18 S Side Replacement

This Martin D-18 S (circa 1970) was the unfortunate casualty of a rowdy party. With so much wood missing the only solution was to replace the damaged side. You can see John with the finished job. This guitar was well worth being ressurected from the dead.

Memphis Mike's Custom Baxendale Acoustic Guitar

"Memphis" Mike MacCaghren and Malcolm Bruce (son of Jack Bruce) trade licks on a couple of custom Baxendale guitars. Headstock showing "Memphis Mike" inlay. Memphis Mike playing his new custom Baxendale guitar.

Memphis Mike's Custom Baxendale Electric Guitar

Memphis Mike with his new custom Baxendale neck-through Tele-style guitar; made with a Brazilian rosewood top and fingerboard with a maple neck and Parsons White B-Bender. Scott is holding Mike's old B-Bender Tele. Shown is Mike's guitar under construction with the B-Bender laying on top of the unfinished body. This is done in order to get proper alignment prior to installation. Here's a close up of the mother-of-pearl inlay set into the Brazilian rosewood fingerboard. The headstock of Memphis Mike's custom "Tele" style guitar with mother-of-pearl and rosewood inlaid into the maple neck. This shows the body detail which is a "faux" F-hole done in mother-of-pearl and abalone along with the abalone and ivoroid body trim, all inlaid into the Brazilian rosewood top.

The Mossman Years

As the former owner of the Mossman Guitar Company, I tend to see quite a few Mossmans for repairs. Approximately 5000 Mossmans were produced from 1969-1985 and I built 250 instruments when I owned the company from 1985-1990. Owners of "Baxendale" Mossmans include: Willie Nelson, John Mellancamp, Jorma Kaukonen, Donovan, Greg Lake, Carl Perkins, James Burton, Chris Hillman, B.J. Thomas and Travis Tritt.

Steve Howe Neck Reset

By sighting down the edge of the neck it can be determined if the neck needs to be reset. The plane of this fingerboard should be even with the top of the bridge. In this case the plane of the fingerboard is at the bottom of the bridge hence the need for a reset. John can be seen injecting steam into the dovetail neck joint in order to get the neck off of the body. This is done through a small hole drilled into the neck joint through the fingerboard at the 15th fret. This is a very delicate operation and requires much skill to perfect. One photo shows the neck joint exposed. Now the neck is to be trimmed back along the edge of the heel, just the right amount to give a proper neck angle and improve the action and sound of the instrument. You can see the guitar in clamps with the neck being glued back on the body after the reset. Here I am with the finished guitar, practicing Yes tunes!

Steve Howe's OO-18 Restoration

This is Steve Howe's famous OO-18 used on many of Yes' most famous recordings. This guitar had many extra holes in it from the various pick up systems used over the years in concert. My task was to eliminate those holes and refinish the body. You can see the steps taken to fill two holes in the upper bout where there was once a volume and tone control for an old preamp. At the tail block there were two holes where there should only be one. I had to remove part of the butt wedge, then fill the hole with a mahogany plug. After replacing the inlaid wedge the guitar is sanded and ready for finish. The top has had a piece spliced in from an earlier restoration. In the middle, you can see the guitar nearly finished.

Will Sexton's "Sextone" and Baxx's Custom Electrics

Here are two custom solid bodies, the one on the left was made in 1986 for, Austin, Tx. guitar player, Will Sexton. The one on the right I made for myself in 1993. They are both similar but the "Sextone" has a one piece maple neck, EMG pickups and it is the only guitar I ever made with a Floyd Rose tremolo system. The "Baxendale" (on right) has a one piece rosewood neck, Fender pick ups, and a vintage style tremolo with Graph Tech saddles. I personally used this guitar at many gigs during the 1990's. My inspiration for this design came from combining a Strat with a Tele and a Danelectro. The last photos show Will Sexton with his custom Baxendale "Sextone" guitar and Will jamming with Joe Ely in a club in Austin the night he received his guitar.

Two Baxendale Custom Guitars

The first guitar is a mahogany dreadnought made for Bing Soloman in 1997. An unusual inlay made from rosewood, mother-of-pearl and abalone. The second guitar was built for Dr. Richard Staller with rosewood sides and back and a sitka spruce top. Very intricate abalone soundhole rosette. The guitar is filled with newspaper to keep lacquer spray from going inside the guitar.

Warner Brothers Mossman Superlative

The guitar is on display at the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, Ca. You can see the museum's description of the guitar I made. If you look close, you can see Bugs Bunny inlaid at the 5th fret. Here I am playing my guitar for the first time in fifteen years. Richard Glick wonders just how this guitar can sound so good. If you look close you can see Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny and Tweety Bird. The black and white photo shows inlay pieces as they are being cut out in 1988. You can see how detailed the complete fingerboard inlay is. Here I am with John Alexander from the Museum of Making Music.